when you wake up on your own.

Jace agreed, sending needles shooting through the boy's heart. His hackles lifted along his spine as he padded swiftly along the trail, employing all of his senses now to find the wolf that had been their leader from the beginning. Here and there as they went were more signs of both the cougar and Ferdie--a tuft of fur, an imprint in the dirt of a paw, a marking upon a leaf. Wherever they were going, it seemed oddly like both creatures were hunting, although who was hunting who, Summer found he could not tell. The scents became muddled, either by design or the rising dread that tried so desperately to seer through the Ostrega's determined concentration towards finding the missing alpha.

It was a while later that Summer slowed to a stop in a clearing. He stared fearfully at the ground, which was littered with broken branches, torn foliage and prints that made it quite clear that there was been some sort of scuffle here. The place stank of blood and cat and wolf and the visual evidence left no doubt in Summer's mind that this was where the hunt had come to an end.

"I don't understand," Summer whined softly, coming down from his surge of un-Summer-like behavior to the anxious youth he often was. He turned to Jace, worry in his eyes. "They were definitely here, but.. where did they go?" And who in the end had become the prey?

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